The Notations of Cooper Cameron

by Jane O'Reilly

  Cooper runs off with an eye to the ground for leaves. He steps on pine needles and acorns and sandy grass. Almost steps on a little gray toad. He thinks of Amicus and how badly Amicus would like to swim in a real lake when he grows up, so he hikes toward the cabin.

  “Green leaves!” Caddie shouts as he rounds the top of the hill.

  “The greenest leaves!” he hollers back.

  The screen door squeaks open. Snaps shut. “Wipe your feet!” his mother calls. “Dad’s coming and you know how he likes things just so.”

  Cooper is already wiping his feet. First one foot, and then the other foot. Just so. Just so. Just so.

  Amicus sees him coming and lifts his head. Cooper gives him an extra food nugget so the frog will have extra strength to swim in the moat. And he waits. He waits for the food nugget to dissolve in Amicus’s belly because he has read in a book how dangerous it is to swim on a full stomach.

  He waits and waits and waits.

  He puts his small notebook and one small pencil in his pocket while he counts to two hundred and forty. Then he scoops Amicus from his aquarium with a plastic dish, microwave safe, covers it with a strainer, and carries Amicus out of the cabin and down the hill to his private beach and sandcastle in the sun.

  “What took so long?” Caddie asks.

  “Amicus wanted to come with me.”

  Caddie shakes her head. She is mad again. She has found a hundred leaves, all by herself, and has plastered them against the moat walls and filled the moat with water.

  She is a good warrior.

  The moat drains more slowly, but it is almost empty. Amicus won’t have enough time to swim before every last drop is gone.

  “Why do you even need a moat?” Caddie asks.

  “To defend the castle against the enemy. And to avoid fires.”

  “Can’t you just pretend?”

  “I am.”

  Caddie frowns. “I have an idea.” She brushes the sand from her hands. “I’ll be right back,” she says, and runs up the hill toward the cabin.

  Cooper places Amicus on the ground, in the shade of the birch tree. He pulls his small notebook from his pocket and sets it next to Amicus’s dish. “You stay put,” he says, and then he fills the red bucket with lake water and pours it into the moat one, two, three times. For a nanosecond, the moat is full to the brim. He thinks of the dead ivy from Grandpa’s funeral in its little glass boat and his mother watching the green tape, waiting for the leaves to return, and he knows that what he feels for this tiny second is hope.

  And then he hears a laugh.

  Two big, tanned boys in shorts are walking up the beach, tapping thick sticks like canes, swinging giant plastic ice cream buckets. They pass the boathouse at the edge of the water. Pause. Scan the ground. Poke under the dock with their sticks.

  The tallest boy picks up a rock and throws it across the lake. It touches down one, two, three times. The boy with blond hair and a big smile that never goes away can top that one, easy. He picks up a rock, winds up like a pitcher, and sends the rock across the top of the water like a hovercraft. The rock touches down one, two, three, four times. The boys laugh. The blond boy slaps the dark-haired boy on his back. They must have a private joke between them.

  But they are strangers. And they are getting closer every second.

  And then they see Cooper.

  “Do you live here?” asks the tall boy with dark hair and pimples all over his face. He points his stick up the hill toward the cabin.

  Cooper shakes his head and shivers and holds the empty red bucket to his stomach with both hands. No one lives here. It’s just a cabin. He and his mother and Caddie and Amicus are on vacation. And That Boy is standing right next to him.

  “Are you just here for the summer?” Tall Boy asks.

  Cooper takes a deep breath. Nods. “I’m here for seventy-nine more days.”

  “So you’re one of those. A city boy,” says the other boy, the blond one with smooth skin like the boys in Caddie’s magazines. He pokes his stick in the sand. Leans on it. Grins.

  That Boy doesn’t like that grin.

  “We thought this place was abandoned,” Tall Boy says.

  “Yeah. Abandoned. Like we could burn it down and no one would ever know,” the blond grinner says.

  Burn it down. Burn it down. Burn it down. Cooper’s nerves sputter. He trembles from the inside out.

  “What’s your name?” Tall Boy asks.

  “C-c-ooper.” He shivers more, wishing with all his might Caddie will come down the hill. He looks over his shoulder. She is not coming down the hill. She is not coming right back. He looks at his sandcastle. At the draining moat. He wishes the lake were a great circle of moat around the cabin. But it is just a lake. And now he is glad Caddie is not coming down the hill. She would not be safe. And he is glad That Boy is standing next to him.

  That Boy slaps Cooper on the back.

  Cooper can’t help himself. Does not want to help himself. Wants to help everyone. He stomps the ground one, two, three times with his left foot. Feels every grain of sand sift through the hairs on his shin. He stomps the ground one, two, three times with his right foot.

  “What’s with you?” The Grinner says.

  Go away. Go away. Go away. Cooper thinks these words. Feels them tumble through his brain. Sees them fall into a gulley in his skull. The words are drowning. Cooper cannot reach them. Cannot save his drowning words.

  He says no words at all.

  “We’re just trying to make friends,” Tall Boy says.

  “Yeah,” says The Grinner. “Friends. But if you can’t be friendly, I’ll just have to do THIS.” The Grinner whacks the sandcastle with his stick. The turret of Oz explodes in the sunlight. A billion dazzling crystals. The Grinner laughs.

  The moat has failed.

  The enemy has breached the castle walls.

  “Whadja do that for?” Tall Boy asks. “He’s just a kid. C’mon.” Tall Boy runs with long legs, like a frog’s. “C’mon!” he hollers to The Grinner. “You want his mom or dad after us or something?”

  The Grinner whoops. Chases after Tall Boy. Chases him as far as the birch tree. Trips over Amicus’s dish. Knocks the strainer and Amicus into the sand. Then The Grinner stops. Stops and leers over Amicus.

  Cooper freezes. Hugs his red bucket.

  “What’s this?” The Grinner says. “Frog legs for lunch?” He raises his stick like a spear. Amicus raises his head. Looks The Grinner in the eye.

  “Todd! C’mon!” Tall Boy yells from the neighbor’s dock.

  The Grinner grins. Aims. “Ready, set . . .”

  Cooper watches The Grinner’s stick blur to nothingness.

  “Todd!” Tall Boy runs back. Grabs The Grinner by the arm. The spear releases. Thwup! The spear sways side to side, nose-down in the sand.

  The Grinner sneers at Tall Boy. “You made me miss!”

  “Leave him alone and c’mon. I’ll be late for work.” Tall Boy runs again.

  The Grinner picks up the stick and looks at Cooper. For a second, the grin is only in his eyes, and then his teeth begin to show. He kicks the sand, and Cooper’s little notebook flutters across the beach like a giant paper moth. He shoots Cooper another grin and kicks the microwave-safe dish into the air. It drops into the sand at Cooper’s feet.

  Another grin.

  Amicus is next.

  Cooper takes a deep breath.

  But Amicus outsmarts The Grinner. In an instant, the frog leaps and lands in the dead and rotting weeds on the shore.

  Cooper sighs.

  The Grinner grins. Turns away. Catches up to Tall Boy. Together The Grinner and Tall Boy run up the beach, swinging their buckets.

  Cooper hurries to the shore. Drops to his knees in the reeds. Scoops Amicus into his hands. “I’m sorry,” he says. He wishes he would have yelled at the boys. Wishes he could have grabbed a stick and chased them. Knows The Father would never go after Tall Boy and The Grinner. Would only yell at Cooper. Cooper wish
es he would have yelled The Father’s words, “What’s wrong with you?”

  Cowards and chickens and sissies do not climb over docks with big, tanned boys. They can’t skip rocks. They can’t run with long legs, like a frog, without a care in the world. And they would never raise their heads bravely toward the spear.

  Amicus is brave.

  Amicus is a hero.

  “From now on you will be known as Amicus the Great.”

  Cooper refills the microwave-safe dish, puts Amicus the Great inside, and covers the bowl with the strainer. He sets the dish in the shade of the birch tree. Brushes the sand from his notebook. Stares at a blank and dirty page and thinks to himself, Sometimes writing down nothing is better than writing down something.

  Amicus was in danger, and Cooper did nothing. Said nothing. Leaving the page blank will remind him of the close call. And how he is a coward. He writes

  June 8th

  on the blank and dirty page so he never forgets he did nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. He puts the notebook in his pocket. Picks up a rock. Throws it at the lake. The rock does not skip one, two, three, four times. It hides beneath the water. Like a coward. Like Cooper. He pulls out his notebook one more time.

  From now on I will try to be as strong and brave as Amicus the Great.

  Cooper returns to Oz. The castle walls have crumbled. The towers are flattened. Cooper will have to start over. Build a castle bigger and better than Oz. Create a new and safe world for all creatures. Where heroes live forever. He stomps on what is left of the turret. Stomps with all his might. Stomps until the sandcastle melts into the beach.

  “Cooper!” Caddie yells. “Cooper, Cooper, Cooper,” she says, but every time she says his name it sounds like it is dropping off the edge of a cliff. To its death. Cooper knows he has failed her.

  She shakes her head and holds up a long yellow box of plastic wrap. “I don’t understand you,” she whispers with mean in her voice and maybe sadness too. She has had it. She cannot take another step. She sits down. Slaps the long yellow box on the ground. Kicks at the sand.

  Now the plastic wrap is ruined too.

  “Why did you do that? It was beautiful. I told you I had an idea.” Caddie shakes her head again, her mouth open, the words shocked out of it. Her eyes are wide and shiny and Cooper knows she has seen a ghost. A ghost of Cooper. A ghost of a secret. She has not seen the truth.

  “If you just would have waited. Mom needed me to help her . . .” She unrolls a little plastic wrap from the box. Waves the box in the air. “I think this would have worked.” She stands, brushes off her shorts, and goes back up the hill. The plastic wrap sparkles in the air, waving like an invisible flag.

  Caddie has not surrendered.

  She has given up.

  There is a difference.

  Please come back. Please, please, please. Cooper wants to tell Caddie about Tall Boy and The Grinner. Tell her his secret. But he cannot. He does not want to frighten her. He must protect her at all costs. Cannot ever fail her again.

  “Better get Amicus out of the sun before he explodes,” Caddie says from the top of the hill. She does not look back. “And you better come eat some breakfast.”

  Amicus the Great! The sun has shifted. The dish is hot. Amicus is under water to keep cool. Cooper is there in the nick of time.

  He carries the frog up the hill and across the yard and into the cabin to the safety of the dresser in his cool, dark room. He pours Amicus into his swimming dish with a silent splash.

  “Cooper!” his mother yells from the kitchen. “Wipe your feet. Dad called and he can’t make it this weekend, but I still want the place kept clean.”

  Yes, he will wipe his feet. He will wipe, wipe, wipe his feet. And then he will wipe his feet again. He stomps his left foot one, two, three times. Then the right foot. He hears The Father’s words: Stop that right now before you embarrass yourself. But he cannot stop. He stomps his feet again. That Boy knows Amicus had a close call. That Boy will never let him forget how close he came to disaster.

  He pushes his fingers between his toes and lets the sand fall to the floor. He brushes and brushes and brushes the sand away until his feet are raw and his toes burn like fire and he cannot brush them anymore.

  He thinks of the big, dark rock at home on his desk, alone. Thinks of the two tanned boys. He grabs his good and famous book and climbs onto his bed.

  The cabin is not a sandcastle. It cannot be kicked into thin air. But it could catch fire and burn. Cooper imagines the lake is a great moat around the cabin. No sticks. No strangers. No fires.

  He reads. Reads and reads. He reads to save Amicus from the cruel world.

  Poor, brave Amicus.

  Cooper pulls his notebook from his pocket and turns the page.

  Heroes never die, but they can be killed.

  There is a difference.

  Words

  Rain pours straight and steady from the sky like prison bars. The cabin windows are open, but the air is the same inside and outside. Warm and soggy. Caddie shuffles her deck of cards. “Could you get your snotty nose out of that book for one minute and join the real world?”

  Caddie does not know the truth about books.

  Books are real. Powerfully real. More powerful than their words.

  More powerful than anyone can imagine.

  “You shouldn’t be reading it anyway. It’s too old for you. No wonder it’s taking you so long.”

  Cooper touches his nose. “My nose is not snotty.”

  “Geez, Cooper. It’s just a saying.”

  Caddie slaps the deck of cards on the end table. Two days of rain in a row and she has bored herself silly with games of solitaire. Now she is filing her fingernails.

  Cooper likes the rain. He writes this down,

  Rain is reliable. Rain calms the world. Turns it all one color.

  The sky is gray, the air is gray, the lake is gray. When it is raining, everyone stays in the cabin. In the big golden room, together. Safe and sound. Cooper likes knowing where everyone is. And wet things do not burn. Not very well anyway.

  Still, he must be on constant alert. He reads with his eyes, not his ears.

  Gray thunder rumbles across the gray lake. The rasp of Caddie’s nail file stops. She sighs. His mother’s knitting needles tat-tat together, pause. Tat-tat, pause.

  “When is it supposed to clear up?” Caddie asks. She turns on a lamp by her chair.

  “I think they predicted rain all day,” their mother says. Tat-tat, pause.

  Cooper picks up his pencil.

  Predicting the weather is like predicting the future. It is impossible. One tiny drop of rain changes everything.

  “I think I have cabin fever,” Caddie says.

  “You could try reading,” their mother says. She sits by the stone fireplace, knitting a yellow and white striped afghan for a neighbor’s baby. She does not sit in the big leather chair. Does not sit in Grandpa’s chair where he read the newspaper and his books and smoked his pipe.

  “Maybe you could play a game with me, Coop,” Caddie says, getting up and plopping down next to him on the sofa, filing her nails again.

  Cooper doesn’t answer. Does not want to lose count of his words.

  “I could teach you to knit,” their mother says.

  “I’d rather die first,” Caddie says.

  Die.

  That word stops Cooper’s eyes in their tracks. He presses his pointer finger tight to the page and looks up. Watches Caddie closely for signs of death. She is still breathing. Her eyes blink. Lime-green fingernail dust falls to her lap. She is still alive.

  “C’mon, Cooper. One game. Like Monopoly. Besides, you’ll go blind if you don’t turn on a light.”

  Cooper looks back at his book. Lifts his finger to see the next word: lantern. Reading this word when Caddie tells him to turn on a light is irony. He reads the word two more times and knows Caddie’s words to be true. It is hard to see in the dim light on a rainy day. He could go blind. Does
not want to go blind. There are too many things he must watch closely.

  “Monopoly takes longer than a minute,” he says.

  “Of course it does,” Caddie says. “So what if it takes the rest of the day? That book will still be there.”

  That book will still be there. That book will still be there. That book will still be there. That is the problem. That Book is like That Boy. It won’t go away. Won’t leave him alone. And Cooper is getting tired. He is afraid the fiery orange book will last forever and he won’t have the strength to finish it. Caddie has rescued him. As if swept to shore by a great wave, he takes a deep breath. He would like more than anything to play a game.

  Cooper closes his book. “I’ll get the board.” He crosses the room to the tall cedar armoire, the antique cabinet Grandpa found by the side of the road. He opens the creaky doors. The games are stacked on the shelves.

  Everything in the armoire smells sweet. Like moldy bread. But Monopoly is not there with the other games, like Scrabble and Sorry.

  “Look up,” Caddie says.

  Cooper looks up. Monopoly is on top of the armoire. Next to the jigsaw puzzles. Out of reach. Over his head like a dark cloud on this rainy day. A shiver runs through him. But he knows he does not have to touch the jigsaw puzzles. Does not have to worry about finding every piece and then finding every piece a place. He will not touch them.

  He drags a chair to the armoire, climbs up.

  “I’ll play Monopoly if you play Scrabble,” he says.

  Caddie rolls her eyes. But she can’t. Not really. It is just a saying.

  “I’ll play too, if you play Scrabble,” their mother says, stabbing the silver knitting needles into the ball of yellow yarn.

  “And then we get to play Monopoly,” Caddie says.

  “We have all summer,” their mother says.

  Caddie pushes aside the placemats and napkin holder. Cooper sets the Scrabble game on the dining room table. “We have sixty-eight days,” he says.

  “Don’t remind me,” Caddie says. She sits down in a chair and opens the box. A piece of the brown box lid dangles from yellowed tape. “This must be the first Scrabble game ever made. It’s so old, it’s probably in Latin.”

  “Sanskrit,” Cooper says.